What Happened, Miss Simone? Page #4

We got her home

and I clipped the skin together

and taped it...

and a week later,

there wasn't even a scar.

I think they were both nuts.

She stayed with him.

She had this love affair with fire.

That's like inviting the bull

with the red cape,

"Just come on into my kitchen

and let's see what we can do."

That's what she did.

- What do I want for her?

- Yes.

Myself. What else?

Career-wise.

My father had

a strategic plan in terms of

how Mom's career was going to go.

He wanted her to be able

to win all the awards,

and to become the huge star

that he knew that she could be...

but she wanted something more.

There was something missing in her,

some meaning.

They died in Birmingham,

the nation's most segregated big city.

Dynamite exploded on Sunday morning,

killed four little girls,

injured 20 other Negroes.

It was one of more than 40 bombings

in that Birmingham area.

Kids were murdered

in Birmingham on a Sunday

and in Sunday schools

in a Christian nation,

and nobody cares!

When the kids got killed

in that church... that did it.

First you get depressed,

and after that, you get mad.

And when these kids got bombed,

I just sat down and wrote this song.

And it's a very...

moving, violent song,

'cause that's how I feel

about the whole thing.

"Mississippi Goddam."

Phew!

Hmm?

Got my attention.

What she was doing was different.

There's something

about a woman...

if you look at all the suffering

that black folks went through...

not one black man would dare say,

"Mississippi, goddam."

And then to have someone with her stature

talking about your problem,

you know how happy they had to be?

We all wanted to say it.

She said it.

"Mississippi, goddam!"

For Mommy to write a song

called "Mississippi Goddam"

was revolutionary.

They didn't have cursing on the radio

or on television or anything.

DJ's refused to play it,

and boxes of the 45s used to be sent back

from the radio stations cracked in two.

As the civil rights movement

really swung into high gear,

she swung into high gear with it.

In '65, we played at the Selma March

in Montgomery, Alabama.

We have a legal and constitutional right

to march from Selma to Montgomery!

It was extremely dangerous.

The federal Marshals were called in,

and they were standing

on the tops of all the buildings downtown

with guns.

Seated in front of the stage

facing the audience

was Martin Luther King,

Ralph Bunche from the UN

and a lot of other worldwide dignitaries.

You had Langston Hughes,

James Baldwin, Sidney Poitier,

Bill Cosby, Leonard Bernstein,

Harry Belafonte,

and we did "Mississippi Goddam."

My mother said that

after she sang that song,

she got so angry

that her voice broke...

and from "Mississippi Goddam" on,

it never, ever returned

to its former octave.

But I think that Mom's anger

is what sustained her.

The energy and the creativity

and the passion of those days

is really what kept her going.

When she wrote

"Mississippi Goddam,"

I thought it was something else.

You know, I liked it.

They put a 45 out on it,

and I knew it had a lot of impact.

But my complaint was that

while I was always pushing

for the commercial side of the picture,

she got sidetracked with

all of these civil rights activities.

When the civil rights thing

came up, all of a sudden,

I could let myself be heard

about what I'd been feeling all the time.

When I was young,

I knew to stay alive.

As a black family,

we had to work at it.

We had to keep secrets.

We never complained about being poor,

or being taken advantage of

or not getting our share.

We had to keep our mouths shut

as I walked across

that railroad track every Saturday.

So I knew to break the silence

meant a confrontation

with the white people of that town.

And though I didn't know I knew it,

if the black man rises up and says,

"I'm just not gonna do that anymore..."

he stands to get murdered.

But no one mentioned that,

which is, indeed, quite strange.

It touched me first time

when I gave a recital at this library.

Everybody was seated

and they told me

my parents had to sit in the back,

and I said,

"If they have to sit in the back,

I won't perform."

They fixed it that time

and they brought them to the front

and they let them sit down,

but it was my first feeling

of being discriminated against,

and I recoiled in horror

at such a thing.

I choose to reflect the times

and the situations in which I find myself.

That, to me, is my duty...

and at this crucial time in our lives,

when everything is so desperate,

when every day is a matter of survival,

I don't think you can help

but be involved.

Young people, black and white, know this,

and so that's why

they're so involved in politics.

We will shape and mold this country

or it will not be molded and shaped

at all anymore.

So I don't think you have a choice...

How can you be an artist

and not reflect the times?

I've always thought that

I was shaking people up,

but now I want to go at it more

and I want to go at it more deliberately

and I want to go at it coldly.

I want...

I want to shake people up so bad

that when they leave a nightclub

where I've performed,

I just want them to be to pieces.

All right!

I want to go in that den

of those elegant people

with their old ideas, smugness,

and just drive them insane.

Rise up!

It's all right if you dance slow!

But it was very exhilarating

to be part of that movement at the time

because I was needed.

Now I could sing to help my people,

and that became the mainstay of my life.

Not classical piano, not classical music,

not even popular music,

but civil rights music.

I got to know Martin Luther King,

Malcolm X, Andrew Young,

and artists, actors,

actresses, poets, writers,

people like myself who felt compelled

to make the stand that I have.

It was very important

for her to connect with

the writers and playwrights

of that moment

because those people had

the intellectual background

of the movement

and she didn't have that.

She had music,

the musical background.

For instance, Langston Hughes,

he wrote the lyrics

for "Backlash Blues" for her.

Lorraine Hansberry, Nina took her play,

Young, Gifted, and Black,

and made a song out of it.

It's regarded as

one of the most important songs

in the civil rights movement.

I know that there are only

300 black students here

in this college of 18,000.

So this song is dedicated only to you.

Lorraine Hansberry was my best friend,

and she wrote plays, Raisin in the Sun

and Young, Gifted, and Black.

She taught me a lot about

Karl Marx, Lenin, philosophy.

The basic fabric of our society

that has Negroes

in the situation that they are in

is the thing which must

be changed, you know.

Those times were pretty amazing.

I look back now and I'm just like,

"Wow! Who's who of Black America!"

Lorraine Hansberry

was my godmother.

Malcolm X's wife,

Betty Shabazz, was my auntie.

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